Crisis of Industrial Regions in the Midwestern USA: the First Stage (the mid-1960s – early 1980s)

Abstract

he systemic crisis of old industrial regions in many countries of the world is a very important historical phenomenon of recent decades. This article examines the decline of traditional industrialism in the Great Lakes region of the United States as an example of such events. The article covers the first stage of the regional crisis (the mid-1960s – early 1980s). The study is based on historical statistics, as well as on various non-quantitative data. It is argued that the onset of the crisis was associated with aggravated competition – basic sectors of the local economy (steel manufacturing, automotive industry, etc.) were increasingly lagging behind advanced factories located in the southern states of the USA, as well as in Japan and Western Europe. Later the region (with some differences by industry and state) faced very deep failures during recessions of 1969–1970, 1974–1975 and 1980–1982, also experiencing constant pressure due to the high dollar exchange rate. However, a further deterioration in the early 1980s drew public attention to the situation in the region, which contributed to the turn of local and federal authorities to more active anti-crisis politics.